Love Your Body. Live Your Life.

I’ve been critical of Ricki Lake in the past for her attitude towards her weight loss. Last October, here’s what I said:

It’s not that I begrudge Ricki Lake losing weight (even though she’s only eating 1,200 calories a day, which seems tragically low to me); if she’s happy, then great. But the quotes about herself as a fat girl just make me sad; the fact that she felt she really needed to get as small as possible is sad to me. And I wish she were a little more body positive in talking about her weight loss.

It’s over a year later, and her attitude continues to disappoint me. It’s as if my blog post criticizing her HAD NO EFFECT ON HER WHATSOEVER! That can’t be, can it?

I didn’t have surgery and I worked hard. There’s no secret. I’m active. I watch what I eat.” But the talk show hostess feels under pressure to stay thin now she has shed her extra weight.

She adds, “According to Hollywood standards, I’m not a thin girl. I’m a normal girl. I don’t want to perpetuate that obsession but yet I am also guilty of wanting… to lose weight. I’m just grateful that I have sons and not daughters because it’s that much harder.”

And even though she has slimmed down, Lake doesn’t rule out putting it back on one day: “With the weight stuff I don’t have any answers. Something tragic in my life could happen and I could balloon and gain weight. I can’t promise I will be like this forever.”

God, where to begin with this. She’s self-aware enough not to want to pass her weight issues on to her kids, which is a good thing. At least she realizes that her focus on being thin might not be the healthiest behavior to model. I’m interested in whether you agree that this has less of an impact on boys than on girls, though. Couldn’t her emphasis on staying thin make her boys grow up believing that the only attractive women are thin ones? Isn’t that also damaging to them, and the girls around them?

Moving along, I love how the article says she hasn’t “ruled out” regaining the weight. This isn’t her fault at all, but it’s kind of ridiculous phrasing, isn’t it? “I am now thin. I have ruled out my body ever changing.” Anyway, the part that gets me is where she talks about re-gaining the weight as a result of “tragedy” and “ballooning.” Delightful word choice that speaks volumes about how she views being a fat person.

Oh, and the fact that she “can’t believe” she was a fat person makes me sad. When she played Tracy Turnblad, she was more than a “fat person,” she was a role model and icon. To lose weight is one thing; to turn your back on who you used to be, and what you used to stand for, is quite another.

40 Responses to "I Can't Believe I Was A Fat Person," Says Ricki Lake

Wait a minute, wait a minute. What does she mean by, “I’m just grateful that I have sons and not daughters because it’s that much harder.” Is that because keeping daughters thin is harder than keeping sons thin? Like boys are just naturally thin and if they do put on a few pounds, all you have to do is give them a cheeseburger, and–presto!–they’re thin again?

Couldn’t her emphasis on staying thin make her boys grow up believing that the only attractive women are thin ones?

Absolutely – my brothers are proof of this. My mother’s had a lifelong obsession with her weight. My brothers (who are in their 40s) have a big, big problem if their girlfriends gain a single pound. They don’t demand the same ‘perfection’ from their own bodies, though.

Eh, I don’t know. I think we may be being too critical. First of all, I honestly don’t think it takes a mother focused on thinness for boys in THIS country to grow up thinking the only attractive women are the thin or average ones. I think it’s the norm in this country.

Also, I interpret her “tragedy” comment to mean that she was likely a binge eater, I don’t have a problem with that, bc I am the same way. When I am feeling stress or sadness I will binge on junk and gain weight. I know this is not a good thing, whether I accept my body for what it is or not. Does that make sense?

I’m quite sad to hear that she “can’t believe she was a fat person”. When I was a to-be adolescent, I saw the original movie Hairspray and I have to say I was inspired. Tracy Turnblad was like me. She was a big girl, wasn’t afraid to let people know, and loved to dance. That was wonderful for a fat 10 year old girl to know. That there was a possibility to be happy.

I think Lake was being very honest in this piece, which is more than I give other celebrities credit for, especially those who just give birth to colossal-size babies and then emerge 4 weeks later, newly thin and attribute it to good old diet and exercise. If the pressure for regular everyday women to be thin is so great, I can’t imagine what the pressure for celebrities in the entertainment industry is.

What I find sad is that the only times I read of her, the headlines are always, always about her weight, whether it be that she lost it, she’s scared of putting it back on, or that she’s regained some of it. If not for that fat girl past she hates so much, Ricki Lake would just fade into obscurity.

First, if she thinks her sons are somehow safe from body hatred and obsession she’s sorely mistaken (and irritatingly naive and misinformed.) I know men who live their lives in fear of ‘getting fat’ and spend a decent amount of time projecting those fears on both men and women. In at least one case I can map the source of that self hatred to the exact latitude and longitude- his mom.

Second, I hadn’t even thought about her role as Tracy Turnblad but you’re so right about how she was a role model. Oh and that movie Babycakes with Craig Schaffer. She totally got the hot guy and she was fat. Awesome movie.

Let’s just hope that Nikki Blonsky maintains her body positivity- fat or thin.

Third I must concur with Rachel’s final statement. You would think that Ricki would prefer to fade into obscurity than be played in such an obvious way. I mean, she just did a documentary about natural child birth. Clearly. she’s moved beyond Hollywood. Yet they’re still wanting to bring up the weight.

When I go through those body hatred moments where I dream of losing 100, lbs I always think ‘yeah but you did that one time and you realized how effing fake so many people were. Suddenly, I’m worth talking to because I’m not fat anymore.” No thanks. In a lot of ways that realization is more painful than fat hatred will ever be. And good gosh, the idea of having people negate the last ten years of my life as worthless or bad because of my weight is just too soul crushing to even think about for too long.

To me, from this statement, I get the sense that she is pretty disassociated from her body when she’s fat. In my experience, a lot of women refuse to relate and acknowledge their fat bodies because to them it’s so “unacceptable” or “gross” or “pathetic” or some sign of having no “willpower”.

The fact is that Rikki Lake’s weight has been yo-yoing for as long as I can remember. While it is possible that this weight loss will be permanent, I doubt it. Diets don’t work in the long-term.

I think we could all learn a lesson from Tracy Turnblad. She was vivacious! She was beautiful and she wasn’t going to let fat or ideas about fat stop her from living life and pursuing her dreams.

I think REAL self-discipline would include not allowing our lives to be ruled by weight and allowing ourselves to let go of the thin-obsession and to chase more fulfilling and realistic goals…

The part that I really found sad was her last line: “I can’t promise I will be like this forever.” Who is she talking to? Who needs her to promise that? She doesn’t owe it to anyone to stay thin. I suspect that if she did gain the weight back, for whatever reason, her sons would still love her, the sun would still rise, and the world would continue to turn on its axis.

To tell you the truth, I feel sorry for her. She ended up giving in to the pressure from Hollywood/society to be thin, probably in order to keep working. I’ve noticed that it doesn’t matter how much talent a woman has for acting or singing (or anything else, for that matter), if she isn’t thin, she isn’t going to have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting or keeping a career. There are very exceptions to this rule, and those exceptions face horrible pressure every day to lose weight, no matter what it takes or the jobs will eventually stop coming your way. According to recording executives, no wants to look at a fat woman singing. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Beth Ditto (not that I’m all that up on contemporary female music stars, I’m just sayin’). Movies with parts for fat women are written so that those women miraculously lose weight and get thin, so are played by thin women in fat suits, more often than not.
I mean, really, look at the pressure women face in their every-day lives to get thin, and imagine that pressure magnified 10 or 100 times because you’re a movie star or a music star. If we have trouble resisting that pressure, how much harder is it for someone in the entertainment business?

I have to say that I don’t think she’s moved beyond Hollywood, even with the whole natural childbirth thing.
(Actually, natural childbirth is VERY big in L.A. Both of my kids were born there, and when other mothers found out my kids were born in a hospital, and that I had epidurals, they refused to speak to me. Seriously!)
The pressure in Hollywood to be super-skinny is intense. It’s not questioned, because everyone in the industry has been brainwashed into believing it. I was one of them, for a long time. It wasn’t until I moved away that I REALLY started to question the mentality. Even though I wasn’t an L.A native. There’s something about that place that just sucks you into the craziness. And if you’re trying to earn a living as a performer, you just accept all that madness. Sad, but true.
I knew many women there who, like me, were from someplace else. Unlike me, they weren’t in the industry, and had never had body image issues. Until they moved to Los Angeles.

I think she was being honest and no one should be cut down for sharing their feeling.

Tracy Turnblad was a character, not a real person. Just because Ricki Lake played the part so well and made us fat girls everywhere believe we had a chance to be popular, loved and happy doesn’t mean she really felt that way. Do any of us really, really believe that 100% of the time?

I also agree with her about having boys. I’m glad everyday that I won’t pass on the tripe my own mother passed on to me. Instead I focus on loving them and teaching them kindness and compassion, not hating the way they look and what ever they put in their mouth.

I hope that R L finds success, not in acting or even with her weight loss, I hope she finds success with soothing this demon that some of us carry right along with the fat.

(No, I don’t follow her career. I remember her being quoted about not dieting in a magazine when I was in college – “As long as I’m happy and healthy, who cares?” – and I remember her on China Beach in, um, 90?)

She’s lost and gained and lost and gained. She never gained back to her Hairspray weight, but she has probably fluctuated in weight by what looks like fifty or sixty pounds and three or four dress sizes.

I think she was being honest and no one should be cut down for sharing their feeling.

I agree that she has the right to her feelings, and to share them with the media. But members of the public also have the right to analyze those feelings and comment on them when they’re made as public statements.

To me, those feelings seem self-hating and ridiculous. I’m sad for her that she disowns her early career, in which she attained her greatest successes, because of her body hatred. And I’m angry that the media seems so gleeful about reinforcing that.

I don’t know exactly how I feel about Ricky Lake. Maybe similar to how I feel about Oprah. They kind of do the thing (ESPECIALLY OPRAH) where they lose weight and brag about how great it is and have parties and celebrations. Then they gain some, or all, or more of it back and try to hide it with special clothes and then eventually it becomes too obvious and they start the whole thing over again. I hate the crazy celebration thing they do when they lose weight and get to a “normal” point.

There was something else I wanted to say… I think that picking apart a statement from someone can be a little extreme. Arguing what word someone should or shouldn’t have used seems a little strong arm. I think everyone says stuff they didn’t mean or later regretted or even that came out wrong. She may have looked back at that quote and felt really dumb or she may support it? It is obvious that she has issues surrounding weight but I don’t know if she should be crucified each time she says something that reveals her issues. Maybe she needs compassion and guidance instead? She may be just like some of us- struggling to accept or change or in denial. Who knows?

i was going to say exactly what you said about the fact that her focus on being thin WILL transfer to her boys making them believe that thin = attractive. Also, it sounds like she’s saying that being active and watching what you eat = being thin. That isn’t necessarily true.

I hear that all the time, that woman don’t think they have to worry about the body image as much if they have sons.
I disagree extremely. I have a 3 year old son. Now it’s true that he may tend to want to copy his dad as he gets older, and as he realizes him and his father are the same gender.
However, I’m still a rolemodel to him regardless. Before school, that first five years I”m the main influence of his life. If I’m running around cursing my body and flowing negative thoughts through my brain, you can bet he’s going to pick up on it.
He’s going to either have negative concepts about his own body, or he’s going to have unrealistic expectations of how women should look and feel about themselves. Or he’s going to think it is okay to ridicule any woman he may get into a relationship with, that this is normal.

I think it’s important for mothers to show their sons that they as individuals, not just mothers, love themselves, take care of their bodies and eat a variety of foods, regardless of what they look like. If my son ever grows up to have a daughter one day, I want him to pass on good wisdom to her, and I want him to know what makes a person worthy- and that’s just being born a human being!

I don’t entirely think it’s fair to blame someone for having body image issues in a very crazy-making industry. I mean, yeah, these comments do not really indicate a healthy attitude towards weight, but I do think that it’s not unreasonable for her to think that paparazzi expect her to promise to stay at the same weight-look at the articles after any female in Hollywood is seen looking even a pound bigger.

I just don’t feel upset with her for anything she said. Recognizing her own desire to be thinner, which is practically inescapable in our thinner-is-better society, yet also recognizing that she wishes she didn’t feel that way, is just honest.

I do remember when Ricki Lake was on China Beach and in Cry Baby that she did some interviews where she stressed how “normal” her life was even though she was fat. She even had boyfriends! For real!

What she is displaying here is a tendancy I see in many weight loss stories (most recently on Biggest Loser last night): previously fat person looks at the Before picture and says, “I can’t believe I was that person!” and vows never to be that person again.

Newsflash: you are the SAME person, and your personhood is not inextricably tied to your fatness and everything you hate about your fat self is still going to haunt your thin self if you don’t acknowledge that.

This just comes back to the same problem–we cannot under any circumstances, use celebrities or stars as weight loss role models. The whole of Hollywood is diseased and distorted and bears so little resemblance to our lives as normal women that it is hard to even bridge that gap. I think Lake is honest but flawed as she exists in this world that is so critical and so unreal. What we need to be doing is coming together as communities of women and supporting each other in realistic ways. As for whether it is easier or harder to raise sons–I agree with her. There is still less emphasis on weight and looks and the importance of them on self esteem, although it is getting worse.

I can completely relate to what she’s saying — to me I don’t hear her hating herself or turning her back on who she is or even taking a stand. I just hear a woman who like many struggles to accept her size and has some fear.

I fear gaining back weight I’ve lost. I know I have the capacity to eat away all my emotions and gain 30 pounds in a single month. I have done it. It doesn’t mean I am taking some stand on the issue of fatness or size acceptance or anything, I just still have some struggles with my own body, my own issues, my own coping skills.

To me it’s refreshing to hear someone in the spotlight say — yes, I work on staying this size, whatever it is and yes, I have some issues and fears and insecurities and I am working on it.

What’s wrong with Rikki Lake losing weight, looking amazingly beautiful, and being happy as a “thin person”? Why is everyone so down on her? Is it jealousy? Envy? What? Because Rikki said she can’t believe she was once fat? So what? Hell, I can’t believe I let myself get fat in the first place, let alone that I’m STILL fat! Please, someone explain to me why every time a woman – celebrity or not – loses weight and is all excited about it, she’s the subject of fat women’s scorn.

You know… I really didn’t take Rikki Lake’s comments to be offensive. I remember when she had her talk show, she was always very outspoken about losing weight and being active and how much she loathed being a big girl. She was kind of like a white Oprah where her weight was concerned (uh with a lot less credibility and star power) because it went up and down on national television.

Yay for her for losing weight and feeling good about herself. Not everyone has a body positive image. In a perfect world… maybe. But for now… weight is a humongous issue for some people.

In my opinion, we should try to be happy with ourselves no matter what. Whatever makes us happy as individuals …makes us happy. kwim?

In other news…

Has anyone seen Sarah Rue lately? She has been on the Big Bang Theory as Leonard’s girlfriend and has gained back a little weight! She looks fantastic! (I always thought she looked better with some curves!)

If Ricki Lake can lose that much weight, other women can too. Of course she has it easier than most because of all the money that she has, she can afford to pay personal trainers, nutriotionists and the like. Still, she lost more than 100 pounds and has kept it off for a year. I am curious to see how she will be in 5 years’ time, but I hope she stays slim. She looks so much better and clearly feels better about herself. She should serve as an encouragement for others who feel unable to do anything about their weight.

I’m going to give Ricki a pass for admitting that she still feels pressure to be thin…I think that’s human, especially if you live in Hollywood. But I am very disappointed that she said she “can’t believe” she used to be fat. I lost some weight recently (a much smaller amount, but enough that most people noticed) and I am very, very serious about never making negative comments about the way that I used to look. What kind of message would that send? That people who are my former weight are gross and unhappy? Ha! I think people too often feel that they can insult themselves all they want and don’t think about the way that those comments might come across to others. I think Ricki should know better.

Please, someone explain to me why every time a woman – celebrity or not – loses weight and is all excited about it, she’s the subject of fat women’s scorn.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I feel that way too. I’m sitting here looking at my “before” picture, thinking, “Damn! I don’t believe I was that big!!!” I don’t make negative comments about the way I used to look (for the same reasons Hil outlined) but I can’t help feeling slightly shocked when I see old photos.

While I am aware that my comment may be irritating but I have I have been trying for 47 years to get my butt to grow. I eat in order to accomplish this.

Try as I do to gain weight in the right places it will not go to my butt, not to my legs or my back or my arms ONLY my belly and under my chin. Great.

I stare at women in the grocery store with enormous butts. All I want is to look like them, ya know, curvy. I think larger women are beautiful and I know it’s true cuz when I see them I look at their ring fingers and yep…my point is proven.

He’s going to either have negative concepts about his own body, or he’s going to have unrealistic expectations of how women should look and feel about themselves. Or he’s going to think it is okay to ridicule any woman he may get into a relationship with, that this is normal.

Well said, whoever wrote that comment. I had to change the way I ate and lose about 5 pounds, but only to regulate my period but I agree, life is too hard to be worrying about trying to lose more than what our bodies are comfortable with (i.e. most peoples’ natural setpoints allow them to fluctate between 10-20 pounds plus or minus.)

As far as Ricki Lake is concerned, she lives in that celebrity environment that encourages women to not only focus solely on their looks but on material things that encourage vanity
to the extreme. As difficult as this may sound,
the fatsophere may need to stop relying on celebrities as role models, be they fat or thin.
I for one can’t imagine anything less than HAES because I’m hungry right now. But exercising and eating right are virtues that deserve more attention. I think when people stop worrying about weight so much, they can start enjoying life.

I see a lot of comments talking about how great it is that she’s lost weight and how “At least she feels good about her body now.”

While I don’t necessarily blame Ricki for her feelings, I think it’s so sad that she really has such disdain for herself as a larger girl; It’s terribly sad that she feels such enormous pressure to stay thing; she may think she’s happy with her body, but honestly, is she really happy with having to watch everything she eats and always worry about staying active? She hasn’t explicitly stated that she’s found ways to enjoy being active, so does she really or is it something she does simply to stay thin?

I would never begrudge someone their weight loss, but honestly? To say that she has better body image now that she’s thin and thus she should stay thin is silly; she still has poor body image, she just happens to fall within the confines of what is “Acceptable”